is less more

[Tissy]

I have justed started wine making and have tried plumb blackberry and damson wine after tryiing kits. Reading several post i am concerned that before fermentation i have not used any campden tablets is this ok or can i add them now 2-3 weeks later? The recipes i have used are very basic by C. J . Berry and they no not mention campden tablets?
I have tried to keep things simple.
ie fruit, sugar , water, yeast
should i be doing more?

 

[St Allie]

Often those recipes call for pouring boiling water over the fruit to kill any wild yeasts. I have used that method before having campden tablets myself. As long as everything was clean and sterile you should be ok.

Add the campden when fermentation is complete along with your sorbate. This will stabilise your wine before you sweeten it and will also help preserve your wine. campden tablets and sorbate powder are very cheap ingredients to purchase. In my opinion it would be in your interest to use them.

Allie

 

[Tissy]

Thanks for all your helphttp://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/images/smilies/happy0199.gif

 

[Luc]

Sorry Allie,

I don't agree.

You are right when you say that these recipes pour boiling water over the ingredients to kill all bacteria and fungi.

However there are also airbore nasties and they can settle on the must when it has cooled down again.
I had such an experience with my dandelion wine:
http://wijnmaker.blogspot.com/2008/04/een-ongenode-gast-uninvited-guest.html

In short I poured boiling water over the dandelions and let it soak for a few days.
A few days later is was spontaneous fermenting and not on the sugars I can tell you. It smelled like rotten cheese. I had to dump the whole 25 liter (about 7 gallon)........

So use campden (sulphite) always.
I am not a big fan of sulphite but when a batch goes south like this one did, just remember all the little flowers i had to pick for it, I really remember why to add sulphite.

I would however hesitate to add campden at this stage of the winemaking process. I mean if it is fermenting already.
Adding sulphite now might stun the yeast. So I suggest wait till it has stopped fermenting and then add some sulphite.

Luc

 

[St Allie]

This conversation has come up before.. between you and me Luc. In practice we pretty much agree on everything.


I also said that with good sanitary practices most people 'should' be ok.

I have never expressed the opinion that all wild yeasts, fungi and bacteria are killed by pouring boiling water over a must as per many recipes. Only that I have been lucky in following those recipes myself, in that I have neve lost a batch of wine to those problems.

Luc,
My suggestion to add sulphite was at the end of fermentation, along with sorbate, to stabilise the wine.


What I actually said.

'Add the campden when fermentation is complete along with your sorbate. This will stabilise your wine before you sweeten it and will also help preserve your wine. campden tablets and sorbate powder are very cheap ingredients to purchase. In my opinion it would be in your interest to use them.'

Allie